High Performing Teams (commissionable)

a UCL Behavioural Insights Hub course - other training / workshops.

Commission this workshop for your team. Or, choose the individual bookable course inse in October - Click here.

• Structure: One full day (or adaptable to clients’ preferred schedule).
• Price: variable depending on team size etc.
• Location: In Person - @UCL, London or at clients’ location.

Contact us to enquire. Prefer a chat? Schedule a call.

Overview:

In this three-part workshop, the UCL Behavioural Insights Hub is teaming up with executive coach Lina Khayatt to provide a deep dive into the social world of groups and teams. Delegates progress from more theoretical content on the human social instinct, the fundamental dynamics and value of social groups and potential pitfalls such as groupthink to highly applied techniques for improving and maintaining team culture and making better group decisions. This latter requires intentional development across multiple dimensions: purpose, processes, relationships, conflict competence, and continuous learning.

Key takeaways:

• Understand social cognition and social dynamics.
• Learn to combat the ever-present problem of groupthink - how can we encourage constructive dissent while maintaining a healthy team culture?
• Develop team foundations, conflict competence and leadership flexibility.

The workshop 

Part 1 - Human cooperation and social dynamics (Dr Alicia Melis)

We will begin by reviewing key aspects of human psychology that suggest humans are naturally well adapted for teamwork. From a very young age, we develop psychological mechanisms that support collaboration, coordination, and shared goals with others. Yet, effective cooperation is often difficult to sustain in practice. We will introduce the theory of social dilemmas using game theory, focusing on the Public Goods Game to illustrate the dilemma of cooperation—situations in which individually rational, self-interested behaviour can undermine collective success and lead to the collapse of mutual gains. Understanding why this happens is essential for building effective teams. The session will conclude by identifying practical strategies that help promote trust, align incentives, and create the conditions for stronger and more sustainable cooperation in organisations.

Part 2 - Making effective decisions in teams and the perils of groupthink (Dr Stephen Dewitt)

In this session we take the perspective of a team leader who wants to make the most effective group decision. To do this they want to get all the knowledge and relevant information from their team into the open and to encourage constructive dialogue to allow different ideas to compete. Unfortunately, some level of groupthink is always at play in such situations, either fully shutting down valuable voices or just encouraging people to nudge their answers in a socially acceptable direction. Team leaders need to build a culture of psychological safety, which is difficult. In the long run they need to model fallibility, and genuinely welcome criticism. In the short term we present a range of techniques which can be used to get more out of a team.

Part 3 - Building high-performing teams: from purpose to performance (Lina Khayatt)

In this last session, we extend our perspective beyond the team leader to the broader team. We establish team foundations by distinguishing teams from groups, developing shared purpose and a deeper understanding of development stages. We build conflict competence through the Thomas-Kilmann Model’s five approaches and explore shifting levels of listening from defensive to generative. We strengthen learning through feedback models and feedforward techniques. We explore leadership flexibility that both leaders and teams can adapt to context. Finally, we introduce the concept of team coaching through a systemic lens, which integrates all these elements through a process that creates sustainable transformation.